Ma Petite Mort (Cirque Du Désir #3)

chapter one

giselle

Dark Side – KIRRA47

B lood. Sweat. Fear.

Ahhh, my three favorite perfumes.

The scent clings to me like a second skin—thick, hot, and absolutely feral. It curls in the back of my throat like smoke and honey laced with a little blood and a whole lotta sin. Mmm. Intoxicating. The musk of torches, the salt of sex, the kind of heat that makes your skin prickle before anyone’s even touched you.

The tent?

Oh, baby. It’s throbbin’.

Not a crowd—a pit. Of breathing, panting, trembling bodies, all masked, desperate, and just dying to be ruined.

Some are here to watch.

Some are here to die.

And a few real special snowflakes?

Well… they haven’t decided yet.

That’s where I come in. Enter the blonde bombshell with blood on her lips and murder in her eyes—ta-da!

I hang upside down from the silks, high above the bloodstone altar like a little spider with a taste for sin. My body twists and untwists, slow and serpentine, like I’m winding up for something wicked. Which, let’s be real—I always am.

I’m barefoot. Bare-skinned in all the right places. Black leather straps cage my chest, pushing the girls up like a sacrifice, just beggin’ to be blessed. Runes are smeared across my stomach and thighs in blood-red paint and crusted ash, flaking off as I move like I’m shedding my skin. A fox pelt dangles from one hip, swaying with every little swing of my hips like a tail.

I’m not dressed to dance.

I’m dressed to devour.

And honey, they eat it up.

The crowd below’s already buzzing like flies on a fresh kill—shoulders bumping, masks fogging, mouths open like they’re all just waiting to be hand-fed a piece of me. Some gasp. Some moan. One lady’s got tears on her cheeks and a man’s hand up her skirt, and it’s barely started.

I grin widely. It’s always the quiet ones who make the messiest stains.

Outside, the drums are pounding louder, like a heartbeat that’s just found out it’s about to stop. Boom. Boom. Boom. A war beat. A call to bleed. The kind of rhythm that says, “welcome home, sinner.” Makes my spine shiver and my toes curl around the silks.

Then the torches flare, hot and hungry. They know what’s coming.

So do I.

Because he steps forward.

Bjorn.

Not the ringmaster tonight. Oh no, sugarplum.

Tonight, he’s the executioner.

The preacher.

The monster we gift their bodies to, so he can gift them to the gods.

And fuck, does he look the part.

He stalks into the ring like he was carved from rune-stone and baptized in the blood of a fallen god. Bare from the waist up, his massive frame is streaked in dried blood and ancient Norse ink—spirals and bindrunes, ravens and war prayers scrawled across his chest, his arms, even the sides of his damn face. His long dark hair is braided down his back, the sides of his head shaved clean like he’s ready for war.

Which, spoiler alert—he always is.

He’s six-foot-fuck-me, carved out of violence and dipped in religion. A berserker with a battle axe and bedroom eyes.

And that’s all before he even opens his mouth.

The tent holds its breath when he speaks. Even the flames lean in to listen.

“Tonight,” he growls, voice low, mean and soaked in steel, “we offer flesh for favor. Bone for blessing. Blood for balance.”

Mmm. My thighs squeeze just hearing it.

“This is Disting,” he continues, stalking slowly across the altar like he’s sizing them all up. “A festival of survival. Of sacrifice. Of seafaring and slaughter. And for those of you under these torches—this is your final crossing.”

Someone in the front row lets out a moan. Another one sinks to their knees.

“The gods are watching,” Bjorn finishes, eyes flashing like lightning behind a storm. “But so are we.”

He doesn’t shout. Doesn’t need to. His voice slides through the tent like a hot blade through flesh—slow, searing, and dangerous.

I spin lazily in the silks, arcing my back just enough to put on a show. Below me, I spot him.

A man.

Tall. Cocky. Decked out in an expensive coat, high-polished boots, and an ego big enough to trip over. His hair’s slicked back like a discount villain from a daytime drama, and in his hand? A carved drinking horn—traditional, ceremonial, and completely wasted on him.

He’s sipping frothy beer like it’s champagne, pinky lifted, as if the gods give a shit about manners in a tent built from bones and blood.

He looks at me like he’s already decided how I taste.

Cute.

He thinks this is theatre.

Thinks his money means something out here in the dark heart of Haliburton, where the trees stretch tall and ancient, and no one screams loud enough to wake the neighbors.

Thinks I’m gonna slide down and land in his lap like a good little prize.

Wrong, Romeo.

I purr under my breath, letting my fingers trace up my waist and across my ribs. My hips sway. My head tips just enough to let my hair spill down in a golden curtain. I lick my lips real slow, just to make sure he knows I see him.

He grins—sleazy and smug—like he thinks he’s won something. His hand rises, inching up like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he moves too fast. Poor thing. He doesn’t realize he’s already dead. And then—he touches me.

Fingertips grazing my thigh, sliding up over my hip, bold as sin and just as stupid. His knuckles brush the leather strap at my waist, and he moans under his breath like he just touched God. Or maybe the devil.

I don’t pull away.

I lean into it, because I live for the game—and this one? This one’s my favorite.

Let him cup the curve of my ass and press his palm against my skin. Let him believe he’s got a shot.

“Mmm,” I murmur, looking down at him with a lazy smirk. “That what you wanted, big boy?”

He nods, mouth slack, pupils blown wide behind his mask.

“You like that, huh?” I coo, dragging my nails up my stomach while he keeps groping, getting bolder now, both hands on me like I’m his.

Like I’d ever be his.

He doesn’t notice how quiet the tent’s gotten.

Doesn’t hear the hush that settles like a blade across the crowd. Poor bastard doesn’t even see the shadow moving in behind him, silent and seething.

But I do.

Hook. Line. Dumbass.

Of course Bjorn saw it all.

He knows how much I love to play.

His whole body tenses as he stalks forward, that big, brutal frame wound tight with purpose.

The firelight catches the edge of his axe, and the runes on his chest look like they’re burning from the inside out.

I don’t even finish my spin before he’s there.

One step.

Then two.

Then—boom.

Bjorn’s hand wraps around Mr. Suave’s throat and lifts him off the ground like he’s weightless—a lamb, mid-prayer, already too late.

Like he’s just a bundle of twigs to be tossed on the fire.

The crowd? Gasping. Panting. Absolutely fucking feral.

The guy flails, his horn cup falling and splattering beer across the dirt. His mask knocked crooked.

He claws at Bjorn’s wrist like that’s gonna do anything.

Please. That wrist has held me down and made me beg for mercy I didn’t even want.

Bjorn leans in real close. His face is all dark, carved, and calm—like the eye of a storm, right before it tears your spine out and leaves your soul twitching in the dirt.

The man tries to hold his ground.

His legs dangle, kicking weakly, his hands clawing at Bjorn’s wrist like that’ll do a damn thing. His eyes are wide now—wild and white, like he’s just realized he walked into something ancient and mean and holy.

“Did you think she was for you?” Bjorn growls, his voice a low, lethal purr.

The man opens his mouth. Nothing comes out but a pathetic, gasping wheeze—like a fish flopping around, already halfway gutted.

Oh, honey. It’s so cute when they can’t answer.

“She isn’t,” Bjorn growls.

Then, without a single warning, he doesn’t drop him—he swings.

Bjorn grabs the man by the jaw and slams his head against the altar stone with a sickening crack. Once. Twice. A third time, for good measure.

Skull meets stone. Stone wins.

Blood sprays across Bjorn’s chest in a hot, arterial mist. It streaks down his tattoos, glistening like war paint. The man goes limp in his hands, his body twitching once before going still—a ruined pulp of red and bone at Bjorn’s feet.

The crowd loses their fucking minds.

Someone screams. Someone else howls. A woman moans so loud it sounds like she’s coming just from the kill.

Bjorn lets the body drop, casual as sin, his hand dripping in gore.

He turns, his jaw flexing, nostrils flared. Blood slicks down his stomach, his face, the edge of his beard.

He looks like a goddamn altar come to life.

And he’s looking at me.

I smile sweetly, licking my lips, and ohhh fuck me sideways.

I melt. Right there.

Like a candle made of pure crazy.

Bjorn doesn’t just look at me.

He consumes me.

Like fire licking at gasoline. Like a prayer right before the plunge.

My stomach tightens. My breath catches. My whole body goes hot and tight like a bowstring begging to snap.

Then he grips the silks with one massive paw and yanks.

I fall.

Straight into him.

Chest to chest. Skin to sweat-slicked skin.

My legs wrap around his hips on instinct, and I swear I could purr.

He catches me like I’m sacred. Like I’m sin. Like I’m both at the same time.

“Ma petite mort,” he growls, brushing his lips against my cheek.

Shivers? Fucking everywhere.

And then I see it—his jaw, his chest, his hands—slick and dripping in fresh blood. Still warm, still steaming in the torchlight.

The man he just shattered? Already forgotten.

His blood, though? Still fresh. Still warm and slick across Bjorn’s chest like a fucking masterpiece.

And me?

I’m soaked just looking at him.

The bloodier he gets, the wetter I get. That’s just math, baby.

And then he speaks, his voice low, and dark, dragging over my skin like a blade dressed in silk.

That voice could kill a weaker woman.

Hell, it almost kills me .

Every. Damn. Time.

“Say it,” he orders, one hand around my throat, the other wrapped tight around my waist.

Not choking. Just claiming. Just reminding me who the fuck I belong to.

I drag my nails down his stomach, watching the way his jaw tics, the way his body hums beneath my touch.

“I’m yours,” I whisper, grinning like a sinner at confession. “To fuck, to ruin, to bleed dry—take your pick.”

He growls low and deep, dragging his teeth along the soft curve of my throat.

Around us, the drums pound harder, syncing with the pulse in my throat. The crowd begins to chant, low and primal. The torches stretch higher, flames licking the canvas above like they’ve been starving for blood.

Then it comes.

The first scream.

High. Real. Raw. The kind that makes your spine twitch. Someone’s already bleeding. Someone’s already begging.

The blood feast has begun.

And fuck, I’m starving.

Bjorn’s breath brushes my ear, thick with heat and the coppery tang of someone else's death. His arm is locked tight around my waist, muscles like stone, chest slick with blood and sweat. He smells like smoke and iron and something older than time. Something holy.

“You feel it too, don’t you?” he growls, voice like a drumbeat in my spine. “The shift. The silence before the storm. The gods leaning in.”

I nod, barely breathing. My whole body is buzzing like a live wire.

Gods, he’s right. I can feel them watching. My skin itches with it. The weight of unseen eyes, the press of something ancient and waiting.

“You’re so fucking hot when you get all prophetic,” I murmur, breathless. “Tell me more.”

He growls again, low and dangerous, dragging his teeth along my jaw like he’s marking territory.

“Tonight, we honor the old ways. We give Odin our blade. We give Hel our fear. We give the Vanir our flesh.”

His hand slides lower, gripping the underside of my thigh, pulling me tighter against him.

“We give the gods blood,” he says. “And in return, they let us survive.”

Gods, I love it when he talks murder to me.

“And me?” I whisper, tilting my head, letting my lips brush the shell of his ear. “What do you give me , baby?”

He chuckles, dark and mean.

“You get to set it all on fire.”

My hips roll instinctively against him. The leather between my thighs is soaked, and the only thing hotter than his body under mine is the way the crowd is chanting like they’re already praying for death.

Sk?l. Sk?l. Sk?l.

The word rolls like thunder through the tent, shaking the altar beneath us.

“Fuck,” I breathe, smiling like a lunatic. “This is better than foreplay.”

Bjorn’s hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back so I have no choice but to look up at him. His eyes burn with something ancient, something brutal.

“Let them scream,” he growls. “Let the gods feast. And let them see me take you covered in their sacrifice.”

My breath catches in my throat, and something deep in me twists and howls with need.

“Then what the hell are you waiting for, my beast?” I whisper. “Make them watch.”